With rapid growth of mobile data transfer over a high-speed communication network such as 3G or 4G cellular services, managing and controlling such data transfer become increasingly difficult and complicated. A conventional network layout includes Internet, LAN (local area network), and wireless networks that include hundreds of network devices such as access switches, routers, and bridges for facilitating data delivery from source devices to destination devices. Transferring massive amount of data efficiently between service provider(s) and end users over a typical and/or standard network becomes increasingly challenging.
To simplify scheduling traffic through a shared switching resource packets are typically converted to cells. A typical problem associated with using cell(s) for packet transfer is the tradeoff between a predefined cell size and overhead. If, for example, the cell is small, the overhead can consume a significant amount of the bandwidth. If, however, the cell is large, potential waste in mapping small packets can occur. For instance, if a cell can carry 64 bytes of payload and the packet is 65 bytes long, while one cell is fully packed with the first 64 bytes of the packet, the next cell is only packed with one (1) byte. Such a scenario results in typical bandwidth efficiency of barely over 50%.
A conventional solution is to increase bandwidth capacity such as faster clock cycle to compensate for bandwidth inefficiency. A drawback associated with this approach is that it increases design complication as well as additional costs and resources.